Why Do I Always Weep ?

And other related musical questions.

I’m quite an emotional person. I will have tears come to my eyes at the oddest things. A tree in leaf, a scene from a film … but mostly music.

I can hardly listen to some music without weeping. I chose that word carefully – I could have said cry, rather than weep, but I think weep is closer.

The artist who does this so consistently that I have to be careful who is around when I listen to him is Jackson Browne. I was out on week 5 of Couch to 5 K (again, and for for the fourth time) this morning, and listening to the title track of his 1974 album ‘Late For The Sky.’

Mmhh. Here come those tears again.

So anyway, I cry a lot.

And, related to that, another musical thought.

For some reason, the words of a Moody Blues album came to mind early this morning, so I put it on to listen. From ‘On the Threshold of a Dream’. It reminded me of a time before music streaming, before the internet, before CDs and even before cassettes, when all we had was the radio and vinyl.

So let me take you back to the late 60’s. The news comes out that your favourite band are about to release a new album. You can’t just google it and listen, but you might just be lucky enough to hear a track played on Kenny Everett, or John Peel. Or a friend might have, quite by chance, heard the track and told you about it, knowing how mad you are for their music.

So what do you do ? You head off to the local record shop. In the late 60’s it would be an independent, but by the early 70s, Virgin Records were opening stores all over the place and we had one in Brighton, just a short train ride from where I lived.

Depending on how much you loved this band’s music, you might just buy it without hearing it, or you could ask them in the shop to put the record on, and you would listen to it in a small booth, equipped with speakers in the walls. That’s where I first heard Deja Vu, the magisterial album by CSNY.

But let’s say you just went out and bought it. I remember around that time a typical price for an album was £2.29.

You would get it home, and put it on the turntable. Remember, you’ve only heard one track, or maybe not even that. You’re in your room, and listening to the album, track at a time. And, as you listen, you’re looking at the lyric sheet, if there is one. (Jackson Browne’s early albums had no lyric sheet, so you need to listen really carefully)

The lyric sheet will tell you who is playing on the album – so for example, if Jackson Browne’s second album had a lyric sheet, you would have seen that someone called ‘Rockaday Johnnie’ was playing piano on the track ‘Redneck Friend.’ It was in fact Elton John, but not having a permit to work in the US, he went by a pseudonym.

The point is, you would invest time to listen carefully, and having heard side one, you would carefully turn the vinyl over and play side two, all the way through.

My son and his wife are in the new vinyl generation. The price has gone up – typically £30 for a vinyl record, but I’m guessing the experience is similar. The band that does it for him is ‘Everything Everything’ and I’ve heard him talk about getting and playing the vinyl in the same way that I did back in the 60’s and 70’s.

So, where does that leave me … ? I think I need to be more intentional about my listening to really get the most out of the music that I love.

For example, I had never properly heard this line from Jackson Browne’s song ‘Doctor My Eyes’ before the other day:

Doctor, my eyes 
Tell me what is wrong 
Was I unwise 
To leave them open for so long?

What a great lyric. And as time went on, we heard Jackson Browne write and sing about the big issues of our time – especially the nuclear threat, war, and the environment. Despite the challenge and tendency to become disillusioned, he has kept his eyes open and brought to our attention the things that matter.

Good listening.